U.S. stocks closed higher Tuesday, helped by a bounce in oil and some earnings beats, ahead of the release of the Fed meeting statement Wednesday.
The major averages came off session highs but held about 1 percent higher or more as oil topped $31 a barrel. The Dow Jones industrial average outperformed, trading more than 1.5 percent higher as 3M, Johnson & Johnson and Proctor & Gamble all surged after reporting earnings that beat.
"This is a schizophrenic market. Big up days, big down days. No real direction," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer of Solaris Group in Bedford Hills, New York. "We need some stability in oil prices for the markets to calm down from here and become less volatile."
The Dow Jones industrial average ended 282.01 points higher, or 1.78 percent; the S&P 500 gained 26.55 points, or 1.41 percent; and the Nasdaq Composite added 49.18 points, or 1.09 percent.
Global Stocks Sink Amid China 'Doom' Fears
All 10 major S&P sectors ended higher, led by a 3.78-percent rise in the energy sector. Crude prices settled up 3.7 percent on hopes that OPEC and non-OPEC producers would tackle an unrelenting supply glut.
With oil at 12-year lows and threatening to put higher-cost producers out of business, investors have been reeling from a turbulent start to the year that has left the S&P down 7 percent from the end of 2015.
While the U.S. Federal Reserve is not expected to move on interest rates at its two-day meeting, which began on Tuesday, investors will parse the Fed's commentary to gauge how recent global turmoil affects the likelihood of future rate hikes.